[498] Above, pp. 188.
[499] Citations in Gibbon, ch. 36; Bohn ed. iv, 105. For a somewhat fuller sketch than Gibbon's see Manso, Geschichte des ost-gothischen Reiches in Italien, 1824, §§ 73-79. Cp. Spalding, Italy, i, 398-400. It is possible that Gelasius and Ambrose were thinking mainly of the disappearance of the landowners, and were overlooking the serfs. Deserted villas would give the effect of desolation while the mass of the common people remained.
[500] Sismondi, Fall, i, 236. Cp. Gibbon, ch. 43; Bohn ed. iv, 536.
[501] Sismondi, Fall, i, 240; Gibbon, ch. 45, ed. cited, v. 116-18.
[502] Gibbon, as cited, v, 118.
[503] Sismondi, Fall, i, 241. The movement, as Sismondi notes, extended to Spain, to Africa, to Illyria, and to Gaul.
[504] Butler, The Communes of Lombardy, p. 45.
[505] Sismondi, Fall, i, 259. The historian decides that "the race of the conquerors took root and throve in the soil, without entirely superseding that of the conquered natives, whose language still prevailed," but gives no proofs for the first proposition. The uncritical handling of these questions in the histories leaves essential problems still unsolved. Cp. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, 2nd ed. vi (bk. vii), 579-93; vii (bk. viii), 384, 385. Mr. Boulting does not try to solve the problem.
[506] This is again Sismondi's generalisation (Histoire des républiques italiennes, ed. 1826, i, 21; Short History, p. 14; Boulting-Sismondi, p. 60). He has been followed by Procter (Perceval's History of Italy, 1825, 2nd ed. 1844, p. 9); by Dunham (Europe in the Middle Ages, i, 23); by Symonds (Renaissance in Italy, 2nd ed. i, 48); and by Prof. W.F. Butler (The Communes of Lombardy, p. 46). It is noteworthy that at the same period Henry the Fowler encouraged free cities in Germany for the same reason.
[507] Butler, pp. 40-43; Boulting-Sismondi, pp. 23-27.